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Friday, March 22, 2013

USAID-Humanity United Tech Challenge for Atrocity Prevention

The USAID and Humanity United has launched the second round of the Tech Challenge
for Atrocity Prevention, a technology competition in support of the White
House strategy for preventing mass atrocities - that is, large-scale,
deliberate attacks against civilians. The goal of the Challenge is to engage
the broader technologist, engineering, scientific and maker communities on the
issue of how best to prevent and respond to mass atrocities.

The Tech Challenge offers prizes of up to $10,000 for innovative solutions to
some of the most intractable problems in the field of atrocity prevention. Both
Humanity United and USAID will also consider piloting and / or scaling the most
promising innovations.

The first round, launched in October 2012, focused on two specific challenges:
how better to document evidence of atrocities, and how better to identify third
party enablers of atrocities (i.e. states, corporations, groups or individuals
who provide support to perpetrators). The winners of the first round were
announced on February 13th, 2013. These include a mobile phone app that allows
physicians in developing countries to better document evidence of atrocities,
as well as a proposal for a tool that allows product designers to ensure that a
product's electronic components are 'conflict-free'.

The second round, launched on March 6th, focuses on three critical issues:
better modeling to help predict at-risk communities, improved communication
with and among conflict-affected communities, and better technology to help
gather and verify information from hard-to-access areas. We are looking for
innovative (albeit feasible) ideas, as opposed to finished prototypes.

In addition to the
prizes associated with the Challenge itself, we are interested in providing
additional funding to help pilot and scale the most promising innovations,
though we will approach this on a case-by-case basis. We are also committed to
playing a match-making role, helping to link winners and other interesting
innovations to other foundation and bilateral donors. Finally, we are thinking
through ways to provide technical, non-financial support to participants